Furr - Blitzen Trapper

Yeah, when I was only 17,
I could hear the angels whispering
So I droned into the words and wandered aimlessly about
Until I heard my mother shouting through the fog
It turned out to be the howling of a dog
Or a wolf to be exact, the sound sent shivers down my back
But I was drawn into the pack and before long
They allowed me to join in and sing their song
So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
We would gladly get our fill
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn
And I lost the taste for judging right from wrong
For my flesh had turned to fur, yeah
And my thoughts, they surely were
Turned to instinct and obedience to God.

You can wear your fur
like a river on fire
But you better be sure
if you’re makin’ God a liar
I’m a rattlesnake, Babe,
I’m like fuel on fire
So if you’re gonna’ get made,
Don’t be afraid of what you’ve learned

On the day that I turned 23,
I was curled up underneath a dogwood tree
When suddenly a girl with skin the color of a pearl
She wandered aimlessly, but she didn’t seem to see
She was listenin’ for the angels just like me
So I stood and looked about
I brushed the leaves off of my snout
And  I heard my mother shouting through the trees
You should have seen that girl go shaky at the knees
So I took her by the arm
We settled down upon a farm
And raised our children up as gently as you please.

And now my fur has turned to skin
And I’ve been quickly ushered in

To a world that I confess I do not know

But I still dream of running careless through the snow
An’ through the howlin’ winds that blow,
Across the ancient distant floe,
Fills our bodies up like water till we know.

You can wear your fur
Like a river on fire
But you better be sure
If you’re makin’ God a liar
I’m a rattlesnake, Babe,
I’m like fuel on fire
So if you’re gonna’ get made,
Don’t be afraid of what you’ve learned

Post from: Eric Grey

Some lyrics…

I have always felt burdened by this.  Because so many claim to know the one true way, and they apply to it language.  A friend, maybe better to call him a colleague, once scoffed at the notion of organized religion, thinking it too spare to hold the vastness of the universe.  Too slim a skeleton on which to balance the weight of all that is done, and undone.  I scoffed right back, vaguely annoyed, but the conversation that ensued was instructive.  That was some time ago.

I have spent the last ten years searching.  Searching far and wide for somewhere to call home.  I have run the table, from no structure to total structure, from one continent’s answer to another’s, feasting my fill on revelation, on explanations of how the world works, on prophets, on Saints, on the history of a hundred religions gnashing at one another’s throats all urging one another on, on, on.  In my guts there lives a yearning, an aching place of remembrance, of befuddledness, of mystery, of earnest bleeding hope.  Hope that there is something, some reason, for this pain and bludgeoning, a certain knowledge that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  It is both a question and an answer.  It is both faith and reason.  It wakes me up in the morning, and it puts me to bed at night.

Tonight, I prayed and then went on a bike ride.  My destination is unimportant for the story.  Or at least I think it is.  This was directly after having consulted the Yijing, a sort of internal guidance system that has worked for me time and time again.  Even when I think it has led me wrong, later I find that it hasn’t, and that its accuracy is always deadly on.  Why?  Because it feeds from me and back into me, it serves as mirror and reflection, it speaks to the secret corners of my mind in a language noone else can understand.  What it told me was perplexing.

On my ride back, at the sun’s setting, I felt a curious lightness.  The coolness, the promise of summer on the lips of the night, the uncertain route to my house, the erraticness of Friday night drivers - it all seemed to lift me, to open me, to propel me.  I lost track of time, and I started an age old tradition of mystics, seekers and madmen since time long forgotten.

I spoke to noone in particular.  Actually, mostly I shouted.

And we came to an understanding.  That there is a central point, a unifying something, an immeasurable unknowable unyielding unseeking awe.  And I will never know it.  I will never know it at all.  I don’t doubt that some do, or will.  But my need to do so has closed my mind, closed my heart, made me numb to the beauty and the simplicity of the world.  I cannot be perfect.

I am not perfect.  I will never be.

Whatever tradition I am a part of, whatever tradition guides me through, I must always be myself.  I am not suggesting that for others, this is any difficulty.  Surely, none of this is an revelation to anyone but me.  But inside of me, as I rode, and got mosquitos stuck in my eyelashes, as I rode and counted irises blooming in the failing light, as I rode not knowing where it is that I was going, I found peace.

For now, that is enough.

Eric

Post from: Eric Grey

A bikeride into God

The internal part of my “qi work” is primarily Buddhist in nature.  I have a daily meditation practice that is currently led by the wisdom in the book Wake Up To Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention written by Ken Mcleod.  However, all meditation practices are essentially the same - you just show up and sit.  The unfolding takes care of itself, in a certain way of thinking.  My hope is to have stable attention developed before I graduate from my program in Classical Chinese Medicine.  I seem to be making good progress so far.

I want to say that I think a balanced practice should involve both moving and still portions.  I don’t feel right if I do one and not the other.  If I get too heavy on the moving practices, I find that I tend to get lots of energy rushes to my head and can get antsy.  On the other hand, if I work too much in a sitting position - doing a quiet meditation practice - I tend to get stagnancy in my channels, manifesting as a sluggishness and sometimes pain.  When I find balance (seems to be about 60% moving and 40% quiet in my case) I feel energized, calm and quite excited about my life.

Post from: Eric Grey

Quiet versus moving Qigong practices

Seriously, think about the children!

Post from: Eric Grey

A new perspective on the healthcare crisis

However, energetically things have been somewhat difficult.  It’s partly the difficulty of my fourth year in Chinese medical education at National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM).  It’s partly that we’re birthing a business the likes of which has never been seen.  There are certainly many other factors involved in the difficulty.

The difficulty is most easily described as a kind of pervasive stagnation coupled with a lack of motivation that is entirely uncharacteristic for me.  I’ve found myself playing computer games, sleeping in very late, avoiding work and generally being pretty unproductive.  Of course, during that time I’ve done a lot of work, done well in classes and on clinic shifts, and have been engaged in a rather successful term as my school’s student body President.  So, productive?  Unproductive?  Who can say.

All of that aside, I feel the spring brings a new dawning.  Soon we will enter into the Chinese period called Jīngzhé, commonly interpreted as “awakening of insects.”  This is a fitting name for the feeling I’m experiencing this morning.  It is a kind of emergence from hibernation, a stretching and fanning of the wings, a basking in the first weak rays of sunlight.  It is the activity of one who jumps ahead when others are still shaking off the long winter, to get to the earliest sweetest spring rewards.

I look forward to the fiddleheads and spring onions.  I yearn for muddy hikes in the Gorge.  I note well the fact that a huge push will be necessary for me to emerge from the ground of my long education into the fresh air of practice and self-paced scheduling and the rest.  I see clearly the type and degree of change necessary to prepare me for this push.  I feel ready, I feel awake.

Post from: Eric Grey

Awakening of insects